"In the name of God. Amen. I, William Shakspeare, at
Stratford-upon-Avon, in the county of Warwick, gentleman, in perfect
health and memory, (God be praised,) do make and ordain this my last
will and testament in manner and form following; that is to say,--
"First, I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, hoping, and
assuredly believing, through the only merits of Jesus Christ, my Savior,
to be made partaker of life everlasting; and my body to the earth,
whereof it is made."
The will then goes on to dispose of an amount of houses, lands, plate,
money, jewels, &c., which showed certainly that the poet had possessed
some worldly skill and thrift in accumulation, and to divide them with
a care and accuracy which would indicate that he was by no means of that
dreamy and unpractical habit of mind which cares not what becomes of
worldly goods.
We may also infer something of a man's character from the tone and
sentiments of others towards him. Glass of a certain color casts on
surrounding objects a reflection of its own hue, and so the tint of a
man's character returns upon us in the habitual manner in which he is
spoken of by those around him. The common mode of speaking of Shakspeare
always savored of endearment. "Gentle Will" is an expression that seemed
oftenest repeated. Ben Jonson inscribed his funeral verses "To the
Memory of _my beloved_ Mr. William Shakspeare;" he calls him the "sweet
swan of Avon." Again, in his lines under a bust of Shakspeare, he
says,--
"The figure that thou seest put,
It was for gentle Shakspeare cut."
In later times Milton, who could have known him only by tradition, calls
him "my Shakspeare," "dear son of memory," and "sweetest Shakspeare."
Now, nobody ever wrote of sweet John Milton, or gentle John Milton, or
gentle Martin Luther, or even sweet Ben Jonson.
Rowe says of Shakspeare, "The latter part of his life was spent, as all
men of good sense would wish theirs may be, in ease, retirement, and the
conversation of his friends. His pleasurable wit and good nature engaged
him in the acquaintance, and entitled him to the friendship, of the
gentlemen of the neighborhood." And Dr. Drake says, "He was high in
reputation as a poet, favored by the great and the accomplished, and
beloved by all who knew him."
That Shakspeare had religious principle, I infer not merely from the
indications of his will and tombstone, but from those strong evidences
of the working of the religious element which are scattered through his
plays. No man could have a clearer perception of God's authority and
man's duty; no one has expressed more forcibly the strength of God's
government, the spirituality of his requirements, or shown with more
fearful power the struggles of the "law in the members warring against
the law of the mind."
These evidences, scattered through his plays, of deep religious
struggles, make probable the idea that, in the latter, thoughtful, and
tranquil years of his life, devotional impulses might have settled into
habits, and that the solemn language of his will, in which he professes
his faith, in Christ, was not a mere form. Probably he had all his life,
even in his gayest hours, more real religious principle than the
hilarity of his manner would give reason to suppose. I always fancy he
was thinking of himself when he wrote this character: "For the man doth
fear God, howsoever it seem not in him by reason of some large jests he
doth make."
Neither is there any foundation for the impression that he was
undervalued in his own times. No literary man of his day had more
success, more flattering attentions from the great, or reaped more of
the substantial fruits of popularity, in the form of worldly goods.
While his contemporary, Ben Jonson, sick in a miserable alley, is forced
to beg, and receives but a wretched pittance from Charles I.,
Shakspeare's fortune steadily increases from year to year. He buys the
best place in his native town, and fits it up with great taste; he
offered to lend, on proper security, a sum of money for the use of the
town of Stratford; he added to his estate in Stratford a hundred and
seventy acres of land; he bought half the great and small tithes of
Stratford; and his annual income is estimated to have been what would at
the present time be nearly four thousand dollars.
Queen Elizabeth also patronized him after her ordinary fashion of
patronizing literary men,--that is to say, she expressed her gracious
pleasure that he should burn incense to her, and pay his own bills:
economy was not one of the least of the royal graces. The Earl of
Southampton patronized him in a more material fashion.
Queen Elizabeth even so far condescended to the poet as to perform
certain hoidenish tricks while he was playing on the stage, to see if
she could not disconcert his speaking by the majesty of her royal
presence. The poet, who was performing the part of King Henry IV., took
no notice of her motions, till, in order to bring him to a crisis, she
dropped her glove at his feet; whereat he picked it up, and presented it
her, improvising these two lines, as if they had been a part of the
play:--
"And though, now bent on this high embassy,
Yet stoop we to take up our cousin's glove."
I think this anecdote very characteristic of them both; it seems to me
it shows that the poet did not so absolutely crawl in the dust before
her, as did almost all the so called men of her court; though he did
certainly flatter her after a fashion in which few queens can be
flattered. His description of the belligerent old Gorgon as the "Fair
Vestal throned by the West" seems like the poetry and fancy of the
beautiful Fairy Queen wasted upon the half-brute clown:--
"Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,
While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
And stick musk roses in thy sleek, smooth, head,
And kiss thy fair, large ears, my gentle joy."
Elizabeth's understanding and appreciation of Shakspeare was much after
the fashion of Nick Bottom's of the Fairy Queen. I cannot but believe
that the men of genius who employed their powers in celebrating this
most repulsive and disagreeable woman must sometimes have comforted
themselves by a good laugh in private.
In order to appreciate Shakspeare's mind from his plays, we must
discriminate what expressed the gross tastes of his age, and what he
wrote to please himself. The Merry Wives of Windsor was a specimen of
what he wrote for the "Fair Vestal;" a commentary on the delicacy of her
maiden meditations. The Midsummer Night's Dream he wrote from his own
inner dream world.
In the morning we took leave of our hotel. In leaving we were much
touched with the simple kindliness of the people of the house. The
landlady and her daughters came to bid us farewell, with much feeling;
and the former begged my acceptance of a bead purse, knit by one of her
daughters, she said, during the winter evenings while they were reading
Uncle Tom. In this town one finds the simple-hearted, kindly English
people corresponding to the same class which we see in our retired New
England towns. We received many marks of kindness from different
residents in Stratford; in the expression of them, they appreciated and
entered into our desire for privacy with a delicacy which touched us
sensibly.
We had little time to look about us to see Stratford in the sunshine. So
we went over to a place on the banks of the Avon, where, it was said, we
could gain a very perfect view of the church. The remembrance of this
spot is to me like a very pleasant dream. The day was bright, the air
was soft and still, as we walked up and down the alleys of a beautiful
garden that extended quite to the church; the rooks were dreamily
cawing, and wheeling in dark, airy circles round the old buttresses and
spire. A funeral train had come into the graveyard, and the passing bell
was tolling. A thousand undefined emotions struggled in my mind.
That loving heart, that active fancy, that subtile, elastic power of
appreciating and expressing all phases, all passions of humanity, are
they breathed out on the wind? are they spent like the lightning? are
they exhaled like the breath of flowers? or are they still living, still
active? and if so, where and how? Is it reserved for us, in that
"undiscovered country" which he spoke of, ever to meet the great souls
whose breath has kindled our souls?
I think we forget the consequences of our own belief in immortality, and
look on the ranks of prostrate dead as a mower on fields of prostrate
flowers, forgetting that activity is an essential of souls, and that
every soul which has passed away from this world must ever since have
been actively developing those habits of mind and modes of feeling which
it began here.
The haughty, cruel, selfish Elizabeth, and all the great men of her
court, are still living and acting somewhere; but where? For my part I
am often reminded, when dwelling on departed genius, of Luther's
ejaculation for his favorite classic poet: "I hope God will have mercy
on such."
We speak of the glory of God as exhibited in natural landscape making;
what is it, compared with the glory of God as shown in the making of
souls, especially those souls which seem to be endowed with a creative
power like his own?
There seems, strictly speaking, to be only two classes of souls--the
creative and the receptive. Now, these creators seem to me to have a
beauty and a worth about them entirely independent of their moral
character. That ethereal power which shows itself in Greek sculpture and
Gothic architecture, in Rubens, Shakspeare, and Mozart, has a quality to
me inexpressibly admirable and lovable. We may say, it is true, that
there is no moral excellence in it; but none the less do we admire it.
God has made us so that we cannot help loving it; our souls go forth to
it with an infinite longing, nor can that longing be condemned. That
mystic quality that exists in these souls is a glimpse and intimation of
what exists in Him in full perfection. If we remember this we shall not
lose ourselves in admiration of worldly genius, but be led by it to a
better understanding of what He is, of whom all the glories of poetry
and art are but symbols and shadows.